Aiden had been unable to stop staring at Keaton,
wondering at how Keaton could make getting hired at a
crappy pizza chain feel like a real accomplishment.
Aiden had found Keaton attractive from the
moment he saw him, and he’d appreciated Keaton’s
kindness in giving him a place to stay and distracting
him from the memories of his traumatizing encounter
with Scott. The discipline relationship, silly as it had
sounded at first to Aiden, ended up being exactly what
he needed to get his life back on track. He owed Keaton a
great deal, valued his friendship with the man, and was
more than a little grateful to be having the best sex of his
life.
But lately his feelings had become even more
complex. The idea of
not
having Keaton in his life was
like a raw wound, too painful to touch. He felt a silly,
fawning devotion when he looked at Keaton, and wanted
to run to him, throw his arms around him, crawl inside of
him, and live safely under his skin.
Love.
Was he
in love
with Keaton Hughes? He’d pushed
the idea aside. Of course he wasn’t. He was overly reliant
on Keaton’s guidance. He’d grown needy and clingy, to
the point where he feared leaving the safety of Keaton’s
house and the certainty of Keaton’s rules.
But Aiden had a nagging suspicion that even if
Keaton lived in a cardboard box on the street and had no
clue how to administer a spanking, Aiden would still
want to be with him.
Don’t think he feels the same way about you, Aiden
warned himself. You’re one boy out of dozens, maybe
hundreds, he’s done this with. You have plans anyway—
grad school, or else a move to a big city. It’s never going
to end happily ever after. So why bother fantasizing?
Aiden checked the Recycle Bin on his laptop one
more time, in case by some miracle he hadn’t wiped his
personal statement from the computer. No such luck. He
shut the laptop and headed upstairs. Better get this over
with. He had to be at Zippy’s in an hour, and his butt
would need time to cool after Keaton was done with
him.
Keaton was in his studio, hands dark with clay,
classical music playing on the radio. He wore an apron
splattered like a butcher’s, but with gray instead of red.
He didn’t hear Aiden come in, so Aiden waited by the
door, watching him, a mix of tenderness and despair
tightening his chest. Keaton was beautiful. So beautiful.
So calm and confident and content. What did Aiden have
to offer someone like Keaton?
Keaton finally noticed him and smiled. “Hey,” he
said, turning down the radio.
“Hey.” Aiden went to him, threw his arms around
him, and nuzzled the crook of Keaton’s neck and
shoulder.
“I’ll get clay on you,” Keaton warned.
“I don’t care.”
Keaton’s arms closed around him. Aiden savored
the moment as long as he could, then pulled away.
“I did something bad.”
Keaton waited patiently.
Aiden stared at his feet. “I deleted my personal
statement from the computer. And I shredded my print
copy.”
“Oh?”
“I was reading over it, and I just… hated it.”
“I looked over the statement yesterday and thought
it was great.”
“Yeah, I thought it was okay. But it wasn’t.”
“Do you think it might have been a good idea to
talk to me before you deleted it?”
Aiden flushed. “I didn’t know I was going to delete
it—it just sort of happened.”
“What are you going to do now? Write another
one?”
Aiden didn’t know whether to be relieved or
frustrated that his foolishness hadn’t prompted
immediate outrage on Keaton’s part. “I don’t know. Now
I wish I still had the old one. It wasn’t that bad.” To his
horror, he felt tears stinging his eyes. No
way
was he
going to start crying over this. What was he, a little kid?
Normal twenty-three-year-old men didn’t behave this
way, he was sure of that.
“No, it wasn’t,” Keaton agreed.
“So what happens now?”
“Well, you’ve got another—what, two weeks?—to
write one you like better.”
“Aren’t you going to punish me?”
“We’ll deal with it when you get home from work.”
“But that’s not fair! I can’t work for six hours with a
spanking hanging over my head.”
Keaton kissed his forehead. “Go on. Get ready.
Don’t fret so much.”
Well, this is a new one, Aiden thought as he left the
studio. He’d expected Keaton to go ballistic—well,
ballistic for Keaton. He’d anticipated a very thorough
spanking, a lecture on not sabotaging himself, and
possibly some time plaster gazing in his favorite corner.
He suddenly grew suspicious—was Keaton going
easy on him because his audition for Case was this
weekend? He grumbled his way to work. Keaton didn’t
have to baby him. He knew full well when he’d done
something wrong, and what he deserved.
Work passed slowly, and Aiden grew more upset
about the essay. He really didn’t want to rewrite it.
Maybe there was some way he could collect the pieces
from the paper shredder. Ha. Not likely.
He tossed pizza dough and tried to take some
consolation in the fact that his audition might not be a
complete disaster. He’d given in last week and let
Keaton see his monologues. Keaton had been genuinely
impressed—not the fake impressed you had to be when
you didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. And it had
helped Aiden to have someone to deliver the
monologues to—especially his Shakespeare monologue,
which dealt with the nature of love. Not that he loved
Keaton. Nope. Not even a possibility.
He arrived home, unsure what to expect. Keaton
had salad, chicken, and rice on the table.
“I ate at work,” Aiden said.
“You sure about that?” Keaton asked cheerfully.
“Fine.” Aiden grumbled, sitting down.
“How’s your stomach been lately?”
“Okay.”
After dinner, Aiden did the dishes, wondering if
they were, in fact, going to “deal with” this morning. He
went to the bathroom, and when he returned to the
kitchen, there was a typed copy of his personal statement
on the table, along with a notebook and a pen.
“You’re lucky,” Keaton said. “I printed out a copy
when I read it yesterday.”
Aiden eyed the notebook apprehensively. “That is
lucky.”
Keaton clapped him on the shoulder. “But just in
case you should shred this one in a fit of pique, I’d like
you to copy it out by hand, twenty-five times, please.”
“The whole thing?” Aiden demanded.
“The whole thing.”
“That’ll take forever!”
“Not only will you have twenty-five copies, but
you’ll have it committed to memory. No danger of losing
it again.”
Aiden sat in the chair, dreading this as he’d
dreaded little else in his life. A spanking would hurt, but
at least it would be over quickly. Copying a five-
hundred-word statement twenty-five times would take
hours. And he was already tired from work…
Don’t act like you don’t 100 percent deserve this, he
told himself, picking up the pen. He wrote out his own
words, hating them, hating himself. But as he wrote, he
found little corrections to make here and there. By the
third copy, the statement sounded much better.
Editing lost its novelty around copy four.
By copy six, Aiden wanted to die.
Copy ten. His hand was cramping and his eyes
were blurring when Keaton entered the kitchen.
“How’s it going?” Keaton asked.
“Fine,” Aiden muttered, attacking the paper
furiously with his pen, determined to get through this.
“Why don’t you take a break?” Keaton said gently.
Aiden glanced at him, incredulous. “A break? From
a punishment? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?”
Keaton took the pen from his hand. He sat down
beside Aiden and massaged Aiden’s wrist. “You’ve done
enough for tonight.”
“I’m not even halfway through.”
“You’re done for tonight,” Keaton repeated firmly,
leading Aiden out of the kitchen and upstairs to the
bedroom. He settled Aiden on the bed and retrieved
something from the back of a dresser drawer. As Keaton
approached the bed, Aiden saw that it was a large
wooden hairbrush.
“Jesus, Keaton.” Aiden sat up. Deleting the
document hadn’t been
that
horrid of a crime. And he’d
written the lines, just like Keaton had asked…
“Shhh,” Keaton said. “Put your head in my lap.”
Aiden did, heart pounding. Keaton ran the brush
through his hair. The bristles were soft, scratching his
scalp just enough to make his body tingle. He sighed
and closed his eyes as Keaton brushed his hair using
long, slow strokes. “I thought you were gonna spank me
with that.”
“I just thought this might feel nice,” Keaton said
softly.
“It does.” Aiden sighed. “You’re always nice to me,
even when I’m bad.”
“You’re not bad. Sometimes you make mistakes,
and I correct you. But you’re not bad.”
Aiden stretched and buried his face in Keaton’s
thigh. “I love you,” he murmured.
Keaton paused midstroke. “What did you say?”
Aiden tensed. “I didn’t—I just meant… I really
appreciate how good you are to me.” He raised his head.
“I see.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.” He tried desperately to
read Keaton’s face. “I know there’s no way—I mean,
we’re just—It’s temporary,” he finished lamely.
Keaton set the brush aside and ruffled Aiden’s hair
with his fingers. He seemed sad, distant. “I suppose so.”
“I know I’m not really anything to you. I just—I like
doing the discipline thing with you. You’re really good
at it.”
He was making things worse now. Even in the dim
light, he could see Keaton’s mouth set in a thin line. “I’m
sorry,” Aiden mumbled, moving out of Keaton’s lap.
“You’re not anything to me?” Keaton asked quietly.
“I don’t—You can’t—”
“Do you have
any
idea how much I care about
you?” Keaton demanded, voice suddenly rough with
emotion. “Any idea at all?”
Aiden’s eyes widened. “How much?” he asked.
Keaton flopped back on the pillows and rolled
away from Aiden. Aiden crawled closer and peered
hesitantly over the broad barrier of Keaton’s back. “How
much?” he asked again.
Keaton sighed. “So much that it hurts me to think
about it. But I didn’t want you to feel pressured. I didn’t
want you to feel obligated to stay. And now you say
you’re not anything to me? Maybe we’re not on the same
page at all, Aiden.”
“Are you pissed at me?”
“I’m hurt that you’d dismiss what we have that
way.”
“I’m not dismissing it!”
“That’s what it sounded like.” It was the closest to
anger Aiden had ever heard Keaton come. “If you have
something to say, you should just say it.”
“You can’t expect me to just be able to say exactly
how I feel!” Aiden’s temper rose. “I’m not perfect like
you.”
Keaton rolled over and stared at him. “What the
hell does that mean?”
“You want too damn much! You want to use your
stupid rules to turn me into something I’m not. Your
perfect little robot.”
“
Our
rules.”
“Whatever.”
Keaton turned back to the wall. “Go to sleep,
Aiden.”
“The hell I will.”
Keaton sighed again. “I’m really not in the mood
for this.”
“And what if I meant it?” Aiden demanded.
“Meant what?”
“What I said—that I love you.”
“Then I wish you’d say it again. But only if you
mean it.”
“What would you say?”
“Take a chance. Find out.”
“What if you tell me to get lost?”
Keaton rolled over and faced Aiden. “Have I ever
told you to get lost? I’ve had to virtually beg you to stay
here with me—twice. Say what you need to say, brat.
Don’t make me spank it out of you.”
“I love you,” Aiden said. It was easy, and as soon
as he said it, he felt light, content, completely relaxed.
“You sure?” Keaton asked.
“I’m positive.”
“Final answer?”
“Keaton! Say it back. I feel like a dork.”
Keaton rolled onto him, pinning him to the bed.
“Make me.”
Aiden struggled, giggling, while Keaton nibbled